Choosing Compression Lugs for Your Electrical Job

You’ve got some heavy duty electrical equipment to wire up and you need help deciding which compression lugs to buy. Compression lugs are a form of electrical connector that uses compression or crimping to make an electrical connection to the wire. This connection is then screwed or bolted to either a device or another wire and sealed. A particular compression lug is chosen for a particular job based on 2 factors: The size of the wire being used and the size of the terminal or screw the lug will be attached to. There are also lugs that come with 2 holes for making extra strong connections. Compression lugs come in aluminum, brass and copper for most normal uses. For other specialized types of uses, they are also available in gold and silver.

Why Use Lugs

There are a large number of reasons for using compression lugs. Some of those reasons are as follows:

• When higher voltages and /or current levels will be used in powering the device being connected and a more secure form of electrical connection is needed.
• When bringing power from one location to another and distributing it to multiple devices or loads. The supply wire and the loads will be connected to a bus with compression lugs, ensuring a long lasting connection for high voltage power transfer.
• A connection off the main wire run needs to be made and a splice is too hard to accomplish. Lugs can be bolted together and sealed.

Choosing Compression Lugs

There are 3 criteria for choosing compression lugs. All 3 of the criterion are dependent upon the job being performed or the load being powered. The 3 criteria with a short description are as follows:

1. Use—This will decide what colors if any are present on your compression lug. For a ground wire, there will be green stripes on the lug. Any other colors will specify the size of wire that can be used with the particular lug.
2. Wire Size—Besides green and no-color banding, the colors present on the lug will determine what size wire can be used with it and what size terminal or screw. Screw sizes can be from #2 all the way up to 0/0, which is approximately 1 inch in diameter.
3. Lug, Screw or Terminal Size—This is going to be the second most important determining factor when deciding which compression lug to choose. It will be important to make sure that the lug used is the right size for the connection being made. The opening in the lug must be just big enough for the connector to feed through. Too big and a good, long lasting connection won’t be possible. A hole that is too small won’t allow the connection to be made.

With the information contained in this article, you will be able to choose the right size compression lug for job you’re trying to accomplish. It’s important to remember when purchasing compression lugs that a compression tool of some sort will have to be used. Many such tools are available for purchase at your local hardware store.